


it wasn't the silence of silence

by dangermouses



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:03:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dangermouses/pseuds/dangermouses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles can't speak and he HATES it, but comfort comes from an unexpected place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it wasn't the silence of silence

After hearing variations of "shut up, Stiles!" pretty much all of his life, it had become almost a challenge to be unsilenceable. Is that a word? Should be.

He'd always hated the quiet; it was blank, it was oppressive, it was like breathing through a warm, wet towel. So he filled it. With whatever popped into his head at the time; with jokes and sarcasm, with shrewd observations when he thought vaguely threatening persons weren't paying special attention, random information, or just vague exclamations.

He flailed and pulled faces and just _filled the space_ , because if he didn't that quiet would settle in. It would take root and grow, until not even the loudest noises could chase it away - that was the kind of soundlessness that haunted hospital rooms and graveyards, that filled up rooms whose occupants were gone, and curled around burnt woods and charred fixtures, around abandoned embroidery and whiskey tumblers. It wasn't an absence, so much as a surrender, and he didn't like giving up.

So as loud (and proud to be so) as Stiles was, and was known for, it was almost insulting that, when he lost his voice, it wasn't due to any supernatural whack-a-doo, making him Beacon Hills' very own Little Mermaid, or him finally having his throat ripped out by tooth/claw/sharp object (delete as appropriate). He didn't even have the long-awaited pleasure of being stunned into silence by one of his many acquaintances showing some kind of basic reasoning skills.

Nope. He got the flu.

He was relegated to glorified bedwarmer, tucked up like a child under layers of blankets and duvet; overheating was better than shivering. Pillows piled up behind him in a soft cotton throne, propping him up in his bed, but no matter how soft and cuddly it was, it was still a prison sentence, and playing films on his laptop just wasn't chasing away the emptiness. It was like he was in a canyon; the sounds echoed and bounced around, but the quiet was still there, expanding into every nook and cranny of his room.

It got better when he had visitors, but it never really went away.

Scott and Allison came by, laden with blu-rays and magazines; they crashed out on his bed, body-warm and brilliant, talking about everything and nothing. They both laughed at his silence, calling it the Ninth Wonder of the World and wondering if an apocalypse was nigh. He didn't mind, not really. He was just grateful they were there, every day after school, to chase the quiet away - but he'd feel better when he could talk back, as opposed to typing responses out on his laptop and flicking the occasional rude gesture.

Lydia dropped by, flanked by Danny and a visibly-reluctant Jackson; the boys made brief mumbled comments about his health and lacrosse, while Lydia looked around the room with clinical curiosity as though she was science officer on an away team. An observation which reminded him to stop marathoning Star Trek, as it was obviously affecting his brain. Danny brought him some comics, because he's the MAN, and smiled as he said "Quiet is a new look for you, Stiles." Jackson glared at anything but him, like he was above scowling at ill people.

Before they left, Lydia actually took a cup of his favourite soup from her designer handbag - the kind from the to-go place down by the hospital. She smirked at the gobsmacked look on his face, four parts triumphant to one part actual fond but that was only the good kind of maths as far as Stiles was concerned. Then with a flick of red hair she was gone, dragging the boys in her wake. Not before Jackson's parting short of course; "Don't choke and die in your sleep, Stilinski. Or, y'know, do."

Without the ability to snap back, Stiles felt small.

The door clicked shut and the absence rushed in, until Stiles just buried his head under the pillow in an attempt to escape it. It lasted thirty seconds before he had to come up for air, his closed-up throat protesting the recycled air from such a small space. He hated this - not being able to use the one thing eh had going for him, his wits and sarcasm, not being able to hold his own against his peers. He didn't care that the flu made him sick and weak - he was always weak, a fact he could no longer ignore when most of his friendship group were practically meta-human - but he did care when it removed his only advantage.

His dad was feeling just as bad - he hated not being around for Stiles when he was sick. They were too familiar with sickness to be comfortable with it, but the sheriff's office needed him, so that was that. He was still working late and working hard, though continually reminded his son that he was only a text away should he need it. When he popped his head round the door, on his way out or just after getting in, it only pointed up the dead air in Stiles' bedroom.

The Sheriff was a man of silences; he could say volumes with it, let it pull answers out of the people around him. Maybe it was a cop thing. He could gather it around him like armour or just sit comfortably in it. Stiles wondered sometimes if it would have been easier, if he and his Dad were more alike - if they'd miss her any less, if they could put her ghost to rest. As it was, his dad kept her in the silences, and Stiles kept her at bay with the noise. Sometimes, in the early hours when the whole world seemed to fade into silence, Stiles thought if he was keeping his Dad at arm's length too, if he was hurting him. If he was making it all so much _worse_.

He tried to sleep during the day just so he could avoid the cold quiet that settled into his room - even when he'd been home from school before, he'd always been able to chatter away to himself. It was unnerving, to be deprived of even his own company. Of course, sleep was near impossible whatever the time - his body kept him awake with hacking coughs, only giving up in the face of complete exhaustion. Even then, he still coughed, if the gross state of his pillow when he woke was any judge.

The first time they showed up, he couldn't think of anything he would have said, even if he could.

For a second they stood in the door of his room, looking like extras from a bad comedy about wayward teenagers. He'd started calling them Scoobies in his head, because dog jokes are always funny and Whedon was formative, damn anyone who said differently.

The second passed; Erica was the first to move, strutting across the room to jump onto the end of his bed, grinning like he was the last bunny in the forest and she was hungry. Boyd followed, more sedate as he walked round the bed to sit on the furthest side from the door; he looked over his shoulder at Stiles, managing to look bored as well as curiously concerned. Isaac stood by the door for a moment longer, before walking over and sitting down, pulling his legs up to sit crossed.

They just stared at him and he could feel that quiet creeping in like smoke, could feel it like heat coming off them. Werewolves didn't need to talk as much as people, and people didn't need to talk as much as Stiles, so he was royally fucked. Every now and then one of them would sniff, almost delicately - more like cats than wolves - and glance at each other. It was possibly the weirdest five minutes of his life, and that included all the recent supernatural bullshit.

Then it got weirder.

From a purely zoological point of view, he got it; puppy piling was basically the comfortable way of scent marking, which they all did anyway (he could go a good few years without seeing Scott wriggle around on his second-hand carpet again; not his fault thrift stores didn't clean with a wolfy nose in mind), and it was a pack thing. Which is where the logic stopped; he wasn't pack, or at least he thought he wasn't pack but the trio of glowy-eyed puppies making his bed their own seemed to say otherwise.

Erica wiggled up the bed to lie her head on the duvet over his hip, golden hair spread across the bedspread and the weight of her body heavy on his side, right down from his waist to his ankle. Isaac mirrored her, flopping onto his side to press his face against Stiles' ribs, just above the edge of the covers - he was wearing a thick hoodie but he could feel the warm of the other boy's face, nuzzling into a more comfortable position. Isaac's arm was curled up to his chest, in the space between them; where Erica was open and lazy, stretched out, he was curled up close and small. Boyd simply sighed, looking at Stiles almost consideringly, before moving to insinuate himself next to him, an arm slung across his shoulders, tucking himself into the throne of pillows and his sock-clad feet under Erica's side.

Stiles was very confused, but the warmth of bodies was making him lethargic - he was too tired to question crazy werewolf sleep habits, and too pinned in to reach for his laptop, to type out the questions that were piling up in his tightened throat. His chest was thick and heavy with the flu, but he was enjoying a brief relief from the waves of coughing. So, eventually, he just wiggled down into his pillows and slept.

They showed up almost every day after that, after school let out. Scott walked in once, eyes almost bugging out of his head, but Stiles was too tired to react - he had spent the day on the bathroom floor, coughing up blood and phlegm into the toilet bowl. Common enough, when he was ill; he tended to hack until his throat was raw. Didn't make it any less unpleasant, or exhausting, knowing that the blood was just from cuts and burst vessels in his throat. It still reminded him of his mother, and other ways for the body to bleed. Scott ended up just sat at his desk; probably using his laptop to check in with Allison, occasionally looking over to make sure the wolves weren't eating him.

Visitors made it easier, but it didn't fill the emptiness. Not like he could, not like he needed.

His words and thoughts bounced around in his head; he couldn't throw them out, ignore them and move on. It was suffocating, the quiet on the outside and the screaming inside. And they all thought it was funny, which he had seen coming, which didn't really hurt - until it did. Offhand comments and shared laughter at his expense, he was used to it but now, he couldn't join in, couldn't turn it around, self-deprecate, grin and bear it. He was stuck, just smiling and nodding, maybe typing out some witty retort - by the time he'd typed it, the conversation had moved on.

"You're cute when you're quiet."

"Like that relieved calm you get after someone finally turns off their hair-trigger car alarm."

"Stiles, what did Greenberg say that ti- uh, nevermind."

"Conversations without references to comic books or masturbation: win/win, huh?"

"I like you like this."

It was nine days in silent purgatory before Derek showed up.

Stiles struggled to a sitting position as the familiar silhouette pried his window open and dropped through, boots surprisingly quiet on the carpet. He was already pulling his laptop into his lap, preparing to whip up whatever research or supplies the Alpha had come to demand from him. First off, though, he scribbled a note down and flicked it towards him: _No wall-throwing-against possible, I'm afraid, unless you want me to throw up on you. Won't be pretty._

Derek scowled, which wasn't unusual, balling up the note and throwing it back so it bounced neatly off Stiles' head - but when he spoke, his voice was pitched low and almost grudgingly-soft. If he had been able to speak, it was a fair bet the 180 in the alpha's manner would have left Stiles speechless. At least for a minute.

"Wasn't planning on it. Move your computer."

Maybe more than a minute. Stiles' jaw dropped as he looked at Derek, who had shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it carefully across the end of the bed. When he toed off his shoes, Stiles' jaw closed with an audible click. He was frozen in place, all agog at the casual familiarity the werewolf seemed to have in his space - especially considering they were two doors down from the soundly-sleeping man who had once _arrested him_.

Derek snorted as he reached across to take his laptop, shutting it and putting it on the floor - his voice still had that strange rumbling-softness, though his expression was as hard and closed-off as it ever was.

"I'm not going to kill you, so stop staring like I'm the friggin' bogeyman."

Even silenced, Stiles did not stop, well, being Stiles. The comment brought an incredulous squeak from his abused throat, his arms flailing wide towards the man as his eyebrows shot up. He was being told by a werewolf that he _wasn't the boogeyman_?! _No, just your regular old friendly fang-having eye-flashing creature of the night! Well, that's okay then!_

It took him longer than he'd like to realise that Derek looked... not happy, but more relaxed. When he'd finished his silent rant in mime and was simply glaring up at him, Stiles realised that Derek looked less tired, less tensed up. He wasn't smiling, wasn't close, but his jaw wasn't tight and his shoulders were so unclenched, they almost drooped. Of course, it was gone just as quickly as Stiles realised it was there at all.

Derek looked to one side, his jaw flexing and his eyes flicking up in that roll that said he was irritated but not threatened. His hands moved to slide into the pockets of his jeans - he looked almost like he had the first time Stiles had seen him, in the woods the day after Scott had been bitten.

He was scruffier now, didn't shave as often, and he'd bulked up muscle-wise though you couldn't tell, really, when he had his jacket on. The scruff made his face look gaunt, high cheekbones making his cheeks look sunken. He looked older, which was unsurprising considering the weight he carried now. Plus there was the obvious fact that he was in his socks (and who would have thought the Big bad Alpha would wear odd socks, huh?) in Stiles' bedroom, toes flexing and curling into the carpet like he was so unused to the softness. Which, damn- he probably was.

Stiles was reaching for his pen again, to ask why he was being graced with the Alpha's delightfully surly presence, when suddenly Derek spoke again.

"You shouldn't get sick."

Stiles froze in place, his eyes shock-wide and hand still outstretched for the pen on his bedspread. It took the space of a heartbeat for shock to give way to fury. His hand closed around the pen and he flung it at Derek's head, before he turned in his bed to grab objects off the shelf above his bed to follow it up. His hands closed over his clock, his radio, books, bowls - anything. How _dare_ he?! After more than a week of never showing his face, he turned to _scold_ Stiles? For something he couldn't help, something he couldn't fix- but that was what it was always came down to.

Stiles was, after all, only human. Weak and soft, and susceptible.

He ran out of projectiles fairly quickly, his face flushed with anger and embarassment since none of them had actually connected. His arms were heavy and ungainly with fatigue; he doubted he would have hit Derek even if the werewolf wasn't able to dodge Matrix-style. He settled back into his cushions, scowling up at Derek who didn't look like his outburst had put one heavily-producted hair out of place. He was scowling, but that wasn't new and Stiles wasn't exactly in any mood to care. Just looking at him made Stiles angry; he reached for the cup of what-had-once-been-soup on his bedside table, which was apparantly the last straw.

Derek caught his hands at the wrist, holding them still without even the appearance of effort. His face was pinched, frustrated but not angry; his voice was the same, almost annoyed, which only served to make Stiles pull mulishly if feebly against his hold. "Stop it- look, that's not what I meant. Damn it, Stiles, stop!"

Stiles glared at him, lips pulled back over blunt human teeth - werewolves didn't have the monopoly on snarling, after all, and he was _pissed_. He was _angry_ , and he couldn't say a damn word; he wanted to shout and snap and possibly scream, but he couldn't. Hell, he couldn't even get up and walk away. Some measure of what he was feeling must have burned in his eyes because Derek recoiled like he'd been struck.

He dropped Stiles' hands and pulled back, his jaw tensing as he looked down at the furious expression he was faced with. Then he crouched down, giving him the high ground, before speaking slow and careful.

"You shouldn't _be_ sick, was what I was trying to say. It's not- I don't like it. I don't like... you, being sick." Green eyes flicked away to stare at the wall; if looks could kill, the wallpaper would be peeling. Stiles left his hands lie where they had dropped onto his duvet, watching his unwelcome guest like a kitten watching a laser dot. After a minute or so, Derek made a soft half-growl noise - more like a worried puppy than annoyed wolf. Eyes still fixed on the wall (poor wall), he began to talk, again.

"Wolves don't get sick, but wers- the humans in packs, they do. I had- there were wers, in my family. They'd get sick. I didn't like it then, either." he glanced at Stiles, jaw tightening at the look of open surprise he saw. Stiles had never heard Derek even _mention_ his family, not before the fire anyway. Peter maybe a handful of times, Laura maybe once or twice. He'd seen the police report, he knew the body count, and he understood why Derek never said a goddamn word. Stiles hadn't heard his mother's name spoken aloud in over ten years- yeah, he understood.

But now Derek was talking, was _sharing,_  with him.

He stared, wondering what it must have been like - to watch family members with colds, coughs, flu and fever, and not being able to do a damn thing. Not being able to even relate, to sympathise. When you've spent your whole life sickness-free, able to heal from even horrific wounds, it must be hard to watch - he got fidgety with worry anytime his father so much as sneezed too hard. It was then he realised that Derek was _worried_ about him. Sickness wasn't something he could beat or bite into submission, wasn't something he could fight off - he just had to wait it out, and he wasn't exactly a model of patience. And Stiles could admit he probably wasn't the poster boy for robust health himself.

Flu wasn't exactly deadly, but he knew he looked like death; if he was Derek, he'd probably be the same way.

Swallowing past the huge lump in his throat (it was the flu, of course), Stiles nodded and reached over to touch his fingers to Derek's shoulder. It was barely anything, barely a touch, but something relaxed in Derek, just gave way under it. In a second, he had surged up, crawling onto the bed like his puppies had done so often since Stiles got sick. He didn't look at Stiles, just placed his head over his chest, carefully curling his muscled body up in the space next to him, an arm and leg over to trap him, hold him down and safe. He was listening to his heart beat, which made Stiles almost-smile; he did the same thing with his Dad, when he was younger, always reaching for a pulse or pressing his face to his chest. Reassurance of life, they had called it; perfectly understandable behaviour in a recently bereaved child.

Maybe because he wasn't looking at Stiles, or maybe just because a heartbeat is a safe place, but soon Derek began to talk again. Slow, at first; with halting and hedging, all incomplete sentences and bitten off words. Then easier, like he had forgotten Stiles was even there, that he wasn't just talking to himself. At some point, Stiles' hand found it's way into his hair - not petting or stroking, but just curling into the strands, like an anchor tangled in seaweed. Stiles listened, face turned and smooshed into a pillow because this- this was what he had needed. Not polite, mocking conversation or the chatter of people talking around his silence, but just words. Rambling, rolling, stream of consciousness, train of thoughts going nowhere _words_. Filling the space.

Derek talked about everything and nothing. How difficult it was getting to climb into Stiles' room, the werewolf traffic having seriously weakened his tiles. How he hated the smell of peppermint, and loved the smell of bread. How the Camaro handled in the rain, and how it still smelt like Laura's shampoo. He talked about Stiles' smelt, all sickness and medicine and sweat- which earned him a tug at his hair, more amused annoyance than anger. He talked about his pack, how he worried he wasn't enough - he was never meant to be an Alpha, and neither was Laura. They had an older sister who was in line for that, and a younger brother who had got flu every summer, almost like clockwork. Derek pressed his face into Stiles' chest when the subject came up.

"He was sick a lot, because of low white blood cells or something like that. We'd set up a bed in the living room, so he'd never be alone, so we could all sleep in with him. The whole room would smell like sick and sweat, but it was the best way to make him feel better. He didn't like not being able to move. I guess you don't like being not being able to talk."

Stiles stiffened; he didn't want to discuss it, not when he literally couldn't. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to talk about his, well, need to talk. For all he was fond of sharing his every banal thought or feeling, he did so partially to avoid sharing what mattered, what meant something- anything. Talking around the important stuff had become his coping mechanism, jibber-jabbering hard enough to distract people from noticing everything he never said. Figures it wouldn't fool a werewolf - his life wouldn't be that kind.

Derek huffed softly, lifting a hand to pet at Stiles' stomach gently, placatingly. "I'm not asking. Just saying. Jamie would always run away, or climb something, or just spin in circles..." And off he went again, filling the space that had ebbed up between them in the space of a few breaths. Stiles relaxed, muscle by muscle, as he went on. Low voice in hushed tones, like the false sea-sounds from the inside of a conch. Stiles' mother had brought one home from her honeymoon; it was still in the drawer of his father's nightstand. Just like her ring was still on his finger.

Eventually Stiles started to slouch and sag into sleep; he was vageuly aware of shuffling down into the bed proper, Derek still a soft wall of heat beside him. He curled into it, coughing weakly, steadied by a hand on his chest. Tucked close into the warmth, his mind already addled by fatigue and drifting, he could hear a heartbeat. Strong and steady, it was practically a siren call to sleep; his mind dredged up some half-remembered fact about sleep and syncronised bio-rhythms, but then it was gone. The last thing he was aware of before slipping away were arms tucked around his shoulders and a quiet admission; "I miss your voice."

When he woke up, mid-afternoon the next day, he was alone, but when he looked at the assortment of items neatly replaced on his shelves, Stiles found that the memory of words was enough to make the quiet bearable.

 _At least_ , he thought as he grabbed his phone to send a text, _until tonight_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar - 'The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.'
> 
> Written as part of a fic/art trade for Genni - ohthehumanityy.tumblr.com - this was supposed to be a short drabble, but ended up kind of huge. I know there's no real slashy goodness, but it just... ended up where it did. Forgive me!


End file.
